Conventionally, when a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and the like belonging to a customer require maintenance management, the customer contacts a nearest service station by fax or phone, and a serviceman such as a service engineer working for the service station is dispatched to the customer to perform maintenance on the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and the like in response to the request made by the customer (on-call service).
However, there are times when the customer can perform simple maintenance task on the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus by him/herself, or even perform complex maintenance task by him/herself, given a proper maintenance instructions.
But, conventionally, since the serviceman visits the customer after receiving the on-call regardless of maintenance that can be performed by the customer, the serviceman is under a high volume of workload.